Cinematical

I'm surprised the word "grindhouse" isn't used on the packaging of this Al Adamson double feature. Despite the box office failure of the film Grindhouse, more people are familiar with the term now than ever, so it looks like Retro-Shock-O-Rama missed a chance to cash in on the free publicity. Both of the features on this two disk set were produced by Independent International, a company founded by Adamson and Sam Sherman that supplied exploitation flicks for the grindhouse and drive-in circuits of the 60s and 70s. No one would ever accuse Independent International of turning out classics, but some of their flicks including 1971's Dracula Vs. Frankenstein and 1969's Satan's Sadists have become schlock classics -- not great films, but fun little bits of exploitation fluff.

Retro-Shock-O-Rama had a pretty good idea here, presenting this double feature in its natural habitat so to speak, buffering the features with vintage drive-in concession ads and trailers, but they lose serious points by not making it possible to play all the features in sequence. You can access either film or the intermission segment from the main menu, but there's no "play all" function. Unfortunately, that's the least of this double feature's problems. There are some things to recommend about this release, but sadly neither of the features is one of them.

The first movie is Five Bloody Graves, a western released in 1970, by which time the genre was on its last legs, so Adamson attempted to ad exploitation elements to spice things up. Our main character is Ben Thompson (Robert Dix), a gunslinger out for vengeance against Satago (John "Bud" Cardos), a renegade Apache Indian chief who killed Thompson's wife on their wedding day. Satago and his tribe are determined to drive the white settlers out of this region of Arizona, scalping anyone who gets in their way. When a stagecoach carrying prostitutes and a preacher played by John Carradine is attacked, Thompson comes to their rescue. The story is practically non-existent, with the film boiling down to Adamson and his cast playing cowboys and Indians and staging some uninteresting fight scenes. There are some half-hearted attempts at adding gore, but they're too poorly executed to be considered an improvement.

The film feels padded, and scenes go on an on long after the viewer has lost interest. The film is narrated by the voice of death, a bit that is lauded in the disk's liner notes, but is really just a lame attempt to make the directionless narrative more cohesive. The film is shot against the background of some gorgeous Utah desert scenery. In an obvious cost-cutting maneuver, there are no sets, with the exception of a log cabin that is burned to the ground by Satago and his men early on. Native Americans are played by caucasian actors in what appears to be suntan-in-a-can makeup. The pan and scan transfer does not serve the picture well, with large amounts of screen real estate being lopped off on the left and right sides of the screen, often leaving actors offscreen while they are speaking.

The second feature is Nurse Sherri, though the onscreen title is The Possession of Nurse Sherri, and the film was released under a half-dozen other titles including Black Voodoo, which was part of a campaign to sell the film as a blaxploitation movie, which it is not. A cult leader/sorcerer named Reanhauer (Bill Roy) suffers a heart attack while attempting to resurrect one of his followers from the dead. Reanhauer dies during surgery, but his disembodied spirit, hilariously represented by some animated pencil scribbles, takes possession of Sherri (Jill Jacobson), one of the nurses who cared for him at the hospital. Reanhauer uses Sherri as his tool for vengeance upon the surgical team that allowed him to die. The budget obviously didn't allow for many retakes, as actors regularly stumble over their lines. Like Five Bloody Graves, Nurse Sherri suffers from scenes that need to be half as long as they are, most notably a car chase that just never seems to end. I'm a sucker for old horror flicks from this period, and even I found this a chore to sit through. The exploitation elements are better represented with this R-rated flick as opposed to the GP-rated Five Bloody Graves, and if you're in the mood for something stronger, there's an unrated alternate cut of Nurse Sherri on the second disk containing more explicit material.

Despite my displeasure with the two main features the extras are a lot of fun, though I'm not sure it would be worth purchasing the DVD just for the extras. The drive-in concession ads are wonderfully dorky, and the trailers for Five Bloody Graves and Nurse Sherri are more fun to watch than the films themselves. A trailer for a goofy looking sex comedy called Cinderella 2000 is thrown in as well. The second disk with the alternate cut of Nurse Sherri, also has classic drive-in ads and more trailers for the likes of Naughty Stewardesses and Mean Mother, as well as an interview with Nurse Sherri star Marilyn Joi. Best of all, producer Sam Sherman provides commentaries for both features, sharing some great anecdotes from his years in the exploitation film trenches. All in all, the package might have worked if two different movies had been featured.